‘I suppose so,’ I say. This is in fact the supposition I have been clinging to for four days like a shipwreck victim to a broken piece of the hull. ‘But who would do something like that? And why me? I didn’t even know about the reunion when I got the request. Mind you, I suppose it’s obvious.’
‘Why obvious?’ Sophie asks, getting up from the sofa and pouring herself another glass of wine from the bottle on the coffee table without offering me one. She sits down in the armchair on the opposite side of the table and sips her drink, her face unreadable in the shadows.
‘You know. The way I treated her… and what we did…’ I blunder on. ‘Although hardly anybody knew about that. Did they?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Louise. I barely knew her.’ She places her wine glass firmly on the coffee table.
I can hardly believe what I am hearing. I have lived the last twenty-seven years in the shadow of what we did, of what I did. Of course my life has carried on – I have studied and worked, shopped and cooked; I’ve been a friend, a daughter, a wife, a mother. Yet all the time, in the back of my mind, this one unforgivable act has loomed – squashed, squeezed, parcelled, but always there. The awkwardness I have been feeling all evening subsides and is replaced by anger. I thought I would be able to talk to Sophie about this.
‘Yes you did! You know what we did: we made her life a misery. And what about that night, at the leavers’ party?’
‘I honestly don’t know what you mean,’ she says with finality, standing up and picking up her glass. She bends over and takes mine although there’s still an inch of wine left in it, and moves towards the door to the kitchen, a glass in each hand. ‘Listen, it’s been really great seeing you but I’m afraid I’ll have to love you and leave you. Oh —’ she breaks off as the doorbell rings. ‘That’ll be Pete.’
‘Who?’ I say in confusion. I had wanted to tell her about the missing photo, and how I thought someone had been following me on the way to her flat.
‘Pete – my date?’ she says in response to my blank face. ‘Sorry, I did say just a quick drink, didn’t I? I’m sure I told you I wouldn’t be able to give you a whole evening.’
She puts the glasses down, checks her face in the ornate gilt mirror hanging over the sofa, shakes her hair out over her shoulders and trips lightly down the stairs. I sit on the sofa, my face burning. How is it possible that she can still make me feel like this? I should be furious at her rudeness, but instead I feel embarrassed and foolish. I hear a man’s voice and Sophie laughing, then two pairs of footsteps coming up the stairs.
‘This is my friend Louise.’
‘Oh! Sorry to interrupt,’ says the man, looking embarrassed. He’s early forties, mid-height with closely cropped greying hair. He’s not good-looking exactly, but he looks at ease both in his own skin and in his clothes, dressed casually in black jeans and a faded blue denim shirt under a dark woollen overcoat.
‘Oh no, it’s no problem – she’s just leaving, aren’t you, Louise?’
I scramble up from the sofa, red-faced, gathering up my bag in what feels like an unnecessarily scatty manner.
‘Yes, don’t worry,’ I say to him. ‘We were just having a quick drink. I’ve got somewhere else to be anyway. Nice to meet you.’ I offer a hand, which he shakes for a few seconds too long.
‘I’ll see you out,’ Sophie says, shepherding me briskly out of the room and down the stairs. In the hallway she hands me my coat and opens the door.
‘It’s been really fun seeing you,’ she says brightly. ‘See you at the reunion, I guess!’
Her tone is determinedly upbeat, but I can’t help noticing that she is reluctant to meet my eye for any length of time. We say a brief goodbye and I find myself alone on the street, even more confused than I was before I went in. I am struggling to come to terms with Sophie’s rewriting of the past, although I suppose I shouldn’t be, seeing as I’ve been doing exactly that myself for years.
I take a few paces down the road then turn to look back. Through the coloured glass in the front door I can see that Sophie doesn’t immediately go back upstairs, but is standing with her back to the door, leaning against it as if she needs the support. She stays that way, perfectly still, for thirty seconds, then, with a defiant flick of the hair, she is gone.
Chapter 6
1989
Sophie didn’t mention Maria for the next few weeks, so I took my lead from her and said nothing either. I saw Maria around school, and sometimes we chatted, but I had Sophie’s words ringing in my head, I’ve heard some things about her already, so I didn’t let it go too far. I saw Maria sitting with Esther Harcourt at lunch a couple of times, both of them laughing their heads off, Esther looking happier than I’d seen her since primary school.
Three weeks after that first encounter with Maria in the cafeteria, I was walking down the corridor when I saw her standing alone at the end of the lunch queue. I was going to have to join her, unless I turned back and didn’t go to lunch at all. Sophie had left with Claire at the end of double French without speaking to me so I assumed it was one of those days where she wasn’t going to sit with me. Maria was facing straight ahead, so I touched her arm. She jumped, and whipped round to face me.
‘Oh! Hello,’ she said, her eyes brightening.
‘Hi. How are you?’
‘Good, thanks. Yeah, I’m OK.’
I could see Sophie and Claire Barnes ahead of us at the front of the queue, Sophie throwing her head back to laugh, her shining hair flying over her shoulders. I felt a sudden spurt of anger. Why should I have to sit alone on the days when she doesn’t deign to sit with me? I turned back to Maria and smiled.
When we got to the puddings, Maria helped herself to a doughnut, so I did too. I never do that when I’m with Sophie. It was so nice to be able to have whatever I wanted. She looked a bit embarrassed when we got to the till because she had one of those tokens for free school dinners, but I pretended I hadn’t noticed.
Before I had a chance to suggest we sat elsewhere, Maria had placed her tray down on the table behind Sophie and Claire, who were sitting with Sam Parker and Matt Lewis. I could hear them all talking about the drugs they’d taken the previous weekend. They’d gone to one of those raves they go to over on some farm near where Claire Barnes lives, where apparently everyone takes Ecstasy or speed. I’ve never been invited, not that I’d be allowed to go anyway. I remember thinking that day that I’d be too scared to take drugs, although part of me was a bit intrigued. Maria rolled her eyes.
‘God, people who take drugs are so BORING,’ she said, taking no trouble to lower her voice. ‘They can’t talk about anything else.’
It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw Sophie’s back stiffen slightly.
‘Have you ever done anything?’ she asked.
‘I’ve tried dope,’ I said in a low voice, barely more than a whisper. ‘It didn’t really do anything for me, apart from making me feel sick.’